


Lonely

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Klinger is lonely. Charles gets drafted to help.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	Lonely

“May I ask precisely what it is you are doing?”

“Laying here.”

“ _ Lying _ .”

“If you say so, Major.”

Charles groaned. “We want only Pierce to complete this vaudevillian scene. He would, no doubt, offer some quip about the  _ truth  _ of your presence, which I am, I might add, no closer to understanding.” 

“You didn’t ask me  _ why.  _ You asked me  _ what _ . And if you’ll stop talking, you won’t even know I’m here, anyway.” 

It was a winning argument and, given that Klinger was curled into a comma and occupying very little of the bed, it would have been cruel to deny him the space. He might, Charles reflected, have  _ asked  _ \- but it was a warzone and he hadn’t been present when Klinger had entered and been drawn, for whatever reason, to occupy the thinnest edge of his cot. 

Shrugging, Charles took the remaining space, removed his hat, jacket, and scarf, and began to read. Occasionally, in flipping a page, his eyes flicked to the dark head resting on crossed arms. Shifting the book to one hand, he rested his hand on the rise of vertebrae at the base of Klinger’s neck. Klinger sighed but said nothing as he felt around for the tension broadcast by the resting figure and soothed it. 

“You are the most eminently touchable creature,” he said absentmindedly. “If the Buddhists are correct and you are reincarnated, I hope the deity or deities who assign such things see clearly enough to bring you back in the form of a cat.” 

He used the heel of his palm to work the band of muscles at the base of Klinger’s skull. His fingers dangled down to touch his forehead. As if to prove his feline hypothesis, Klinger stretched, head butting against them. Charles obliged the unspoken ask, digging his fingers into one temple then the other. 

“Would you care to tell me, now, why you’ve come?” 

Klinger did not leave the shelter his arms made for his head; he didn’t reveal his eyes. “Lonely,” he murmured at last, as if these two syllables explained everything definitively. 

Caught off guard, Winchester considered. It wasn’t much in the way of self-reporting, but he’d moved forward with just “hurts” to guide him as a pediatrician; wasn’t “lonely” just another version of pain? But was Klinger, in entering the Swamp, expecting him to  _ banish _ said pain? Or was he self-medicating, choosing Charles’ company as a sort of cure? The last was hard for the physician to swallow, so he chose to follow up. “Am I correct in assuming you thought to find Pierce and Hunnicutt here?” 

This question did earn him a response, at least; Klinger propped himself up on one elbow to give him a confused look, pupils wide shrinking as his eyes adjusted to the light of the oil lanterns. “No. What would I want with the captains?” He retreated again to his resting/hiding spot and Charles considered altering his opinion that Klinger would make a fine cat. Did cats  _ hide _ this way? Effectively and yet in plain sight? Did they speak in riddles and welcome your touch only to seem perfectly capable of ignoring you in your own bed? 

“What do you want with me?” 

“Just this.” 

“This… this what? Klinger I am not  _ doing  _ anything.” 

“So? Don’t. Who’s asking?” 

“I don’t understand. You have admitted that you are experiencing loneliness. You’ve come here. How is this  _ helping _ ?” 

Klinger rolled onto his back, accepting the fact that his attempts to be still and quiet were going to fail until Winchester’s curiosity was laid to rest. “I didn’t want to be by myself for a minute. And don’t tell me about OR or any of that, because I’m just a body in there. A lucky body because I’m not hurt, I guess, but still, the only time anybody  _ sees  _ me is when I screw up.” 

Why this was interesting. Their sometimes-corseted corpsman felt like a ghost haunting their procedures? Or like a tool recognized only for utility and never for himself? Winchester had been visited by similar thoughts himself. Having done so, the least he could do was to hear Klinger out. 

“Alright. Go on.”

“I wanted to feel  _ real _ . I’m not even scared to get shot over here anymore because half the time I’m not even sure I’m here.”

“Klinger, would you like me to call Dr. Freedman?”

“No! You’re not listening, Major. I’m not crazy. I’m just  _ alone _ all the time. I didn’t want to be alone again tonight and you’re the only person around here that I like. I can go if you want me to. I’m used to it, which is a good thing considering what I’m going back home to, I just got sick of it.” 

“I see.” He stretched his long legs, then and in a surprisingly graceful motion, pulled Klinger into his lap. Klinger looked up at him, as dumbfounded as if he’d been hit with a bucket of water. “What? You’re not alone now, correct?”

Klinger held himself stiffly, unsure where or how to rest until Charles gently shoved him, destroying his unnatural pose and leaving him sprawled. Winchester tossed a cover over him for good measure, tucking the ends around him as if he’d always done so. He smiled to think that Klinger was somehow almost all sharp edges - elbows and knees and nose - but soft, too, eyeliner smudged from where he’d buried his head in his arms, worn sweatshirt hanging on his frame, his hair - licorice-black and light-catching. 

“How about it, Corporal?” he asked his unexpected visitor after they’d sat together for a time. “Feeling somewhat ‘real’ again?” Outside, rain began to fall and he thought of autumn coming to the cobblestone streets of historic Boston, the shine of cold water on wet leaves. 

“If I say yes, do I have to leave?”

“Of course not. It’s raining and you’re not waterproof. Besides, I appreciate the warmth - and the company.”

“You get lonely here, too, Major?”

The question was almost laughably guileless. “I’m human, Klinger. Of course. Not just here, either, though that’s, ah, well, neither here nor there, I suppose. I wouldn’t have thought to take your unique approach to solving my loneliness, but I won’t censure you for it.” He smiled then. “In fact, you remind me of a story I used to read to my sister Honoria when she was a girl.”

“I bet you were fun to grow up with, Major.”

It tickled him to hear this absurd observation. “I will share your sentiments with Honoria, but I assure you that no one has ever called me ‘fun.’” 

“So, are you going to tell me this story or what?” 

“You don’t think we’re both a little too old for fairytales, Corporal?” 

“I dunno. I tried to tell the army I was too young for this nightmare, but here I am.” 

“Alright, let me see what I can recall.” He didn’t remember all the words, but in telling the story, he was startled to find how much his current situation mirrored those long ago nursery days. Like Klinger, Honoria had sat in his lap, timing her breathing to his as they slipped away from the nursery and into the wild woods of the story where rabbits hopped and chewed on dewy leaves. And as Honoria had as a child, Klinger seemed to listen with his entire body, hanging on his words. And he did end up remembering the most important part of the story almost verbatim. “So, being loved made the rabbit real and ‘once you are real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.’” 

“I would like to find love like that one day,” said Klinger when the story had ended. 

“So would I.” 

But for now, at least, with the rain falling in the dark, they both could settle for something that was just a little less like lonely. 

End! 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
